


Tower of Mirrors

by Reverse Justice (56leon)



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series, The Lady of Shalott - Alfred Lord Tennyson
Genre: Gen, I guess there's shuake if you squint your eyes and hold the fic at a 32 degree angle, but it's meant to be gen, no knowledge of it is needed tho since there's a quick intro to it in the author's note, the entire fic is one big reference to The Lady of Shalott
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 04:10:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13779399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/56leon/pseuds/Reverse%20Justice
Summary: And he knows- this is how he dies. But by god if he isn’t going to make it worth it.Or, Goro Akechi has been looking at the world through mirrors, and now it’s time to finally see.Or or, parallels between Persona 5 andThe Lady of Shalott.





	Tower of Mirrors

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired heavily by the poem _The Lady of Shalott_ by Alfred Lord Tennyson, and even heavier by the song _Shalott_ by Emilie Autumn. Goro Akechi is very much a mirror of the Lady, while Akira is Lancelot. There’s just.....I love Akechi so much and his shackles to his own past hurt me.
> 
> For those who don't want to read _The Lady of Shalott,_ the poem is about a woman - the Lady of Shalott - who lives in a tower by a lake. She's cursed to keep spinning her spinning wheel, and she's never allowed to look out at Camelot or she'll die. Instead, she has a mirror that shows her the view from her mirror. However, one day she sees a handsome man - the knight Lancelot - in the mirror and turns around to look at him. The mirror breaks, and she realizes she's just activated the curse. Because she knows she'd fated to die, she leaves the tower and takes a boat moored nearby to travel down the river. She sings her love to Lancelot on the way, but she dies before reaching Camelot.
> 
> Also, I'm sick as a dog and wrote this in under an hour, I'm sorry if it's messy and rushed. If there are parts that don't make sense or can be expounded on, please let me know! I might rewrite it when I'm not coughing up my lungs, stomach and half a kidney.

**** He always knew, somehow. That he would die before he ever lived. After all, he had dug his own grave, becoming part of a plot that encompassed the world, and what kind of boy could ever  _ truly _ surpass his father?

Still, there’s a struggle, and a front put up in front of everybody who adores him, and maybe that’s the reason his mirrors are tempered from iron and polished steel, the charismatic boy on television masking the boy who threw away everything for a revenge that he may never see.

It’s all so ironic, even as he has one foot on the worthless Shadow, squirming on the ground and begging to be spared. He wonders briefly where his life had turned, at what point he had decided that his justice was worth every injustice that he has been forced to commit- but it’s a useless struggle against his own brain, one he has yet to win, and he raises his gun.

“Shido sends his regards.”

He pulls the trigger.

* * *

 

_ This story is somebody else’s, but Akechi is selfish; he wants to have songs written for him, and her ballads give him a homesickness that he’s never felt before. In his mind’s eye, he sees himself as the tragic heroine, the innocent maiden who lives in a tower and can never look outside. Her mirror is his own salvation, and he feels his heart thud dully in sympathy; what it’s like to look but never see, he knows the feeling all too well. _

_ However, her story is not a romance but a tragedy, and something else curls in his stomach, a fear that he’d die alone in his own tower without so much as a glimpse at the what-could-have-beens on the outside. Outliving his usefulness, not realizing that his multitude of chances to end it have long since passed, it’s complacency that turns his veins to ice. That’s why he searches, looking for every opportunity to take that man down a peg. _

_ There aren’t many, and Akechi knows that’s how fate has built it. His story mirrors hers, and there are no cracks in her tower, no way for her to look outside except the one way that kills her. He wonders if somebody’s destined to kill him, to crack the mirrors of his facade, and then wonders if it would be worth it. The chance to see vengeance, followed shortly by death. He’s still scared, terrified of an afterlife spent absolving himself of his guilts, but he knows that he’d take it if given the chance, and that’s what truly makes his blood run cold. A voluntary death; a willing sacrifice.  _

_ He’s scared of the man who cursed him with life, scared of the gun that he’s forced to cock or run the risk of having it turn on him, scared of the reflections of himself that he wants to fool the world with, but more than anything..... _

_ More than anything, he’s scared of his Lancelot. _

* * *

 

When he says he thinks the Phantom Thieves are unjust, it’s only a half-lie. He  _ knows _ how they’re doing it, and it makes hate and rage and  _ envy _ bubble in the pit of his stomach. Death isn’t the answer, or it  _ wasn’t _ , and he wishes he had that luxury when he had started with his futile quest.

But it was far too late for that, and he’s caught in Shido’s web like a damn fly who thought he could kill a spider. He’s not an idiot, he knows his life for what it is, but still he struggles, struggles far harder than the Phantom Thieves do, and still gets nothing for it but moral corruption and lost hope.

Yes, they weren’t exactly the epitome of justice, but when he looks upon himself, at the blood on his hands and the ice in his heart, he has to admit they’re doing a damn better job than him.

* * *

 

_ His tower is constructed of lies; the mirrors and spinning wheel are of his own making. Through cameras, he feeds the world his false smiles and charm, and the gun is his own salvation from the curse that haunts his waking life. Keep living or die. _

_ Keep killing or die. _

_ He wonders if she ever saw her spinning wheel like he sees his gun, the only reason that bastard of a man still has use for him. He’s his curse, the only reason he has yet to run away and free himself from a life of taking others. He weaves the story of Shido’s successes, killing anybody who opposes the most powerful man in Japan and fueling his own life with the deaths of others. Assassinations are the thread, his weapon the wheel. _

_ The mirror in his heart is constructed carefully as well, built to never break even under the highest pressure. Always a smile, always a polite nod, never the pain or rage of being trapped in a fate that wants him dead. He’s the perfect person; after all, if he’s not, then he may very well be better off dead.  _

_ However, even the strongest of glass has flaws, and his is hope. The chance to take control of his life, to tell whichever god who cursed him to go to hell- the crack in his mirror spreads, looking more like gossamer strings than true flaws. _

_ That is, until it breaks. _

* * *

 

“I’d love to hear more of your thoughts on the matter.”

It’s not a lie, but the smile he puts on his face is. He doesn’t know how he knows, but he  _ does, _ he understands with every bone in his body that this is him. This is the man he’s been searching for, barely a high schooler like Akechi himself yet holding himself with a certainty that rivals even Akechi’s supposedly unwavering justice. It’s as if this boy, Akira, can see through every single mirror he’s set up to protect himself, and he feels himself shatter into a million pieces.

The shards of his mask pierce his heart, and it almost hurts - physically - to keep up the smile he’s practiced for so long. His demise has been long foretold, by him and the fate that binds him to a life of death, and now he feels like he’s staring it in the face. Dark eyes, dark hair, pale skin like the reaper himself yet still warm and inviting and  _ alive- _

This boy is his chance to change his fate, and by  _ god _ is he going to take it.

* * *

 

_ His story is not a romance, but a tragedy, and Akechi almost laughs every time he thinks about it. Maybe, if circumstances had been different, then Kurusu could have saved him, from abuse and neglect and the pain of living a life that he had never wanted. But now, it’s all a means to an end, and nothing Akira can say or do will deter Akechi. Dragged through the mud, used until he no longer has any use, the only redemption he can have is the death of his curse, and even that is growing further away by the second. Akira looks at him on occasion, as if wanting to ask, wanting to steer fate away from the docks and back towards the tower, but Akechi is tired and wants to find his end somewhere else than in futility. _

_ He follows him anyways, knowing that fate has dragged him this far. There’s no way to escape the force of nature that is Akira Kurusu. _

_ (There’s no way to escape his Lancelot.) _

* * *

 

There are words he wants to say, and it would be a lie to say that these aren’t some of them.

“Damnit, I’ll kill you all!”

He hates, hates as much as he envies, envies as much as he loves. The only person to ever give him a place now had his dagger brandished against him, eyes filled with an amalgamation of hesitation and a resolve of steel. 

He  _ almost _ doesn’t want to kill them,  _ almost _ because the only thing worse than them is Shido, but he knows that if they don’t kill him then Shido would do the deed anyways. It’s not like he thinks he can win, either- there’s a difference between a struggle and a battle, and right now he’s struggling to breathe, the weight of his actions weighing down on him even as he screams denials at his enemies....and Joker.

It’s all hard, knowing that he had been so close breaking his curse and yet the only person standing between him and his goal is the one who had sealed his fate all those months ago.

It’s not until he’s defeated that he lets go, rage collapsing into hope and fear and  _ god he wishes he could be there... _ but his Lancelot has already looked upon his face, and maybe he’s been dead since the beginning, wouldn’t that be funny?

His cognition speaks, to him, to  _ all _ of them, and he’s struck with inspiration. A way to turn it around, become the tragic heroine once more. Even as he shoots the floodgate down, hears the screaming of the Phantom Thieves on the other side, he knows there was never any other way to begin with. With the scene set, it’s the last chance he can take, and he’s not going to let it slip through his fingers. There’s one final chance at redemption, one final message to Lancelot.....

One final mirror to crack.

* * *

 

_ He’s not really a lady, and Joker’s not really a knight. But there’s a boat and a death and by god, he still wants to have songs written for him, even if he doesn’t deserve the ballads that give him a homesickness he’s never felt before. Maybe he’d indulge himself, turn a victim of circumstances into one of curses and fairytales. _

_ Maybe he’d pretend he was right all along. _

* * *

 

He always knew, somehow. That he would die before he ever lived. But at least he was given the chance, and maybe taking the hand of a true justice, even if for just a brief moment, was worth the weight of his sins; even though his end was spelled out before him, maybe he had finally been able to surpass his father. He stares at his cognition -  _ one last mirror, for old time’s sake _ \- and raises his gun.

“Guess this is goodbye.”

He pulls the trigger.


End file.
